A quasi-experimental study of form-focused instruction at Hanoi University of Industrial Fine Arts

The hypothesis to be tested in this study was Form-focused Instruction FFI improves students‟ grammatical competence significantly in comparison with the traditional focus- on –forms app

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THỊNH

A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF FORM-FOCUSED

INSTRUCTION AT HANOI UNIVERSITY

OF INDUSTRIAL FINE ARTS

(Nghiên cứu giả thực nghiệm về phương pháp dạy chú trọng dạng thức ngôn ngữ ở Trường Đại Học Mỹ Thuật Công Nghiệp Hà Nội)

M.A THESIS

HANOI- 2010

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THỊNH

A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF FORM-FOCUSED

INSTRUCTION AT HANOI UNIVERSITY

OF INDUSTRIAL FINE ARTS

(Nghiên cứu giả thực nghiệm về phương pháp dạy chú trọng dạng thức ngôn ngữ ở Trường Đại Học Mỹ Thuật Công Nghiệp Hà Nội)

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

Table of content iii

List of Abbreviations vi

List of figures vii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Rationale for the study 1

1.3 Aim of the study 2

1.4 Research question 2

1.5 Significance of the study 2

1.6 The scope of the study 3

1.7 The structure of the study 3

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 5

2.1 Introduction 5

2.2 Definition of terminologies 5

2.2.1 Grammatical competence 5

2.2.2 Form-Focused Instruction (FFI) 5

2.2.3 Focus-on-forms vs Focus-on-form 6

2.2.3.1 Focus-on-forms (FoFs) 7

2.2.3.2 Planned focus on form 8

2.2.3.3 Incidental focus on form 9

2.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of FFI 11

2.3.1 The Advantages of FFI 11

2.3.2 The Disadvantages of FFI 12

2.4 The summary 17

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY 18

3.1 Introduction 18

3.2 The rationale of using a quasi-experimental method 18

3.2.1 Definition of a quasi-experimental method 18

3.2.2 The rationale of using a quasi-experimental method 18

3.3 The study 19

3.3.1 The subjects 19

3.3.2 Procedures 20

3.3.2.1 Pre-treatment test 20

3.3.2.2 Post-treatment test 20

3.3.2.3 Interview 20

3.3.3 The treatment 21

3.3.3.1 Activities used in the treatment 21

3.3.3.2 Process of the treatment 22

3.4 Results 24

3.4.1 Scoring procedures……… 24

3.4.2 Results of pre-test and posttest 25

3.4.3 Data from interviews 28

3.5 The findings 30

3.5.1 The answer for hypothesis 30

3.5.2 The findings from the interview 30

3.5.2.1 Students’ perceptions of the differences between FFI and their conventional learning 30

3.5.2.2 Levels of motivating among the students when adopting FFI 31

3.5.2.3 Students’ evaluations towards the FFI method 32

3.6 The summary 32

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION 34

4.1 Introduction 34

4.2 Summary of the major findings 34

4.3 Conclusion 36

4.4 Recommendation of the application of the FFI method 36

4.5 Limitations and suggestions for future studies 36

REFERENCES 38

APPENDIX 1A I APPENDIX 1B IV APPENDIX 2A VIII APPENDIX 2B XV APPENDIX 3 XX

List of Abbreviations:

EFL: English as Foreign Language

FFI: Form-Focused Instruction

List of tables Table 3.1 Students’ mean score in pre-test and post test ……… 28 Table 3 2: Descriptive statistics of the post-treatment test……… 29 Table 3.3: Results on the five criteria……… 31

List of graphs Graph 3.1: Frequency distribution of the Experimental class……… 29 Graph 3.2: Frequency distribution of the Control class………30

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1.Introduction

Firstly, this chapter presents the rationale for conducting the study This part then will be followed by the aim of the study, research questions, significance, and the scope of the study Finally, the structure of the study will be presented so that the reader will have an overall look of order of the study

1.2.Rationale for the study

Grammar is one of the most controversial issues in teaching a language At first, grammar was taught through a traditional way in which, according to Long and Robinson (1998), discrete points of grammar are presented one at a time Whereas, Fotos (1998) write that what EFL learners really need is a not grammatical feature, but opportunities for communicative language uses Therefore, a meaning-focused approach to language teaching, according to Maley (1986) and Littlewood (1981) that concentrates on language use, appropriateness, fluency, learner-centeredness and integration of language skills (Cited in Gao 2009, p.46), has appeared However Brown (1994:77) suggests that teachers working in the communicative context try to implement “real life” communication in the language classroom in order to help learners develop linguistic fluency not just accuracy

As a result, fluency without appropriateness would cause serious misunderstandings in communication (Dai, 2002)

Recently there has been a call for an integration of focus on forms and focus on meaning in the second language classroom that is focus on form As for Long and Robinson‟s opinion (1998:23), focus on form often consists of an occasional shift of attention to linguistic code features - by the teacher and/or one or more student - triggered by perceived problems with comprehension or production They argue that focus on form is the third option which attempts to capture the strengths of an analytic approach while dealing with its limitation According to Long this approach to grammar is more effective Long (1991: 45-46) claims that through focus on form, learners will be encouraged to achieve more accuracy in using language Rod Ellis (1994:659) also acknowledges that formal instruction results in

increased accuracy and accelerates progress through developmental sequences and its effects are to some extent durable

Studies on focus on form, which were conducted in various contexts, showed positive results However, this question has not been adequately studied in Vietnam, especially in the context where English is taught as a sub-subject at the university

For all these reasons, I decided to conduct a quasi-experimental study of Form-Focused Instruction in HUIFA This study aims at investigating the effectiveness of focus on form approach in teaching grammar toward students‟ grammar achievements at HUIFA

1.3.Aim of the study

This study attempts to examine the effect of form-focused instruction on improving students‟ grammatical competence

In order to achieve the above aim, a quasi-experimental method was used in this study The hypothesis to be tested in this study was Form-focused Instruction (FFI) improves students‟ grammatical competence significantly in comparison with the traditional focus-

on –forms approach (FonFs)

1.4.Research questions

1, To what extent does FFI lead to the improvement of students‟ grammatical competence?

2, Is there any difference in terms of students‟ grammatical competence between FonFs and FFI approach to grammar

1.5.The significance of the study

The result of this study will provide empirical information about the effectiveness of FFI

on students‟ grammatical competence in the context of English as a sub-subject taught at a Vietnamese university The significance of the study will therefore lie in its contributions

to the understanding of how FFI works in an English-as-a-foreign language context

1.6.The scope of the study

The study is limited to the examination of the causal relationship between form-focused instruction and students‟ grammatical competence at Hanoi University of Industrial Fine Arts

1.7.The structure of the study

The study consists of four chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

Firstly, this chapter presents the rationale for conducting the study This part then will be followed by the aim of the study, research questions, significance, the scope of the study Finally, the structure of the study will be presented so that the reader will have an overall look of order of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review

This chapter deals with an overview of the literature It starts with the definition of terminologies including grammatical competence and FFI It is then concerned with FonF

vs FonFs Next part is about the advantages and disadvantages of FFI This chapter will finish with a summary

Chapter 3: The study

This chapter presents the research design, research procedures, and the result of the study Firstly, the rationale for using a quasi-experimental design is presented This will be followed by the description of the procedures and the treatment Lastly, the findings will be summarized and discussed

Chapter 4: Conclusion

This chapter includes the summary of the main findings, the conclusions, the recommendations, and the limitations and the suggestions for future studies Firstly, the summary of the main findings from the treatment is focused on This will be followed by

the conclusions and recommendation of the study This chapter will end with the limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction

This chapter deals with an overview of the literature It starts with the definition of terminologies including grammatical competence and FFI by FonF vs FonFs and the advantages and disadvantages of FFI At last, chapter will be finished with a summary

of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics and phonology (1980, p.29) According to these authors, grammatical competence is the ability

to recognize and produce the distinctive grammatical structures of a language and to use them effectively in communication Grammatical competence is the primary focus of study

in most academic language courses

2.2.2 Form-focused instruction

The term “form-focused instruction” (FFI) was defined by numerous linguists basing on different aspects With its strong point that deals with limitation of focus on forms that, according to Gao (2009, p.46), emphasis on language knowledge teaching than students‟ comprehensive abilities of using foreign language and capture the strengths of analytic approach (Long & Robinson, 1998), FFI is a third option to grammar teaching approach

In some other works, focus on form or Form-Focused Instruction FFI is a dual approach which focuses on both meanings and forms (Spada, 1997) FFI refers to any pedagogical effort, which is used to draw the learners' attention to language form either implicitly or explicitly that occur within meaning-based approaches

According to Long (1991), FFI is a type of instruction that holds up the important of communicative language teaching principles such as authentic communication and student-centeredness, and, on the other hand, maintains the value of the occasional and overt study

of problematic L2 grammatical forms, which is more reminiscent of non-communicative teaching

Ellis (2001:2) states that FFI is a cover term for terms such as “analytic teaching, focus on form, and focus on forms, corrective feedback/error correction and negotiation of form”

2.2.3 Focus-on-forms (FonFs) vs Focus-on-form (FonF)

Doughty (2001:221) points out that FonFs and FonF are “not polar opposites…” She further stresses that “FonF entails a focus on formal elements of language, whereas FonFs

is limited to such a focus…”According to Doughty, a fundamental feature of FonF is that

at the time when learners‟ attention is focused on a linguistic form, they must already be familiar with the meaning and the appropriate usage of that form If information about meaning and usage is lacking, the attention to form would be considered FonFs

Doughty and William‟s definitions of “FonF”, “FonFs” and “FFI” can be represented schematically as follows:

Form- Focused Instruction

Focus

On form

Focus on

forms

2.2.3.1 Focus on forms (FonFs)

According to Long (2000) FonFs is a traditional teaching approach in which teachers present the learners with pre-selected and sequenced linguistic items Echoing Long (2000), Sheen (2002) writes that FonFs is equated with the traditional teaching of discrete points of grammar in separate lessons Sheen (2003) further mentions that FonFs provides the understanding of the grammar by a variety of means, including explanation in the L1, pointing out differences between the L1 and the L2, and aural comprehension activities intended to focus students‟ attention on the forms being used

In Ellis‟ words (2001) “FonFs is characterized by a primary focus on form and intensive treatment of pre-selected forms” (p.16)

Carter and Nunan (2001) argue that FonFs has some weak points For example, FonFs only emphasizes formal aspects rather than meaningful activities Also, Doughty and William (1998) maintain that FonFs always entails isolation of linguistic features from context or from communicative activity As a result, the students have no chance to practice speaking and listening The problem of FonFs is to lay emphasis on knowledge language teaching than student‟s comprehensive abilities of using foreign language Student becomes almost

“structurally competent but communicatively incompetent.” (p.4) That is because language form that is only one component of overall language knowledge native speakers possess, and thus communicative competence should incorporate sociolinguistic and contextual competence as well as grammatical competence

Besides, All these limitations are summed up by Long (1997) that FonFs instruction has two major limitations are as follows:

i) There is no need to identify a particular learner‟ or group of learners‟

communicative needs, and no means analysis to ascertain their learning styles and preferences It is one-size-fits-all approach

ii) Linguistic grading, both lexical and grammatical, tends to result in pedagogic

materials of the basal reader variety and textbook dialogues and classroom language use which are artificial and stilted

iii) Despite the best efforts even of highly skilled teachers and textbook writers,

FonFs tends to produce boring lessons, with resulting declines in motivation, attention, and student enrolments

Despite these limitations FFI has recently been promoted as a more effective approach to grammar since this approach focuses on both the meaning and the form According to Ellis (2001) FFI is an umbrella term which is defined as “any planned or incidental instruction activities that is intended to induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form.” These two instructional strategies are further discussed in the sections that follow:

2.2.3.2 Planned focus on form

Ellis (2001) identifies two types of planned focus on form, namely enriched input and focused communicative tasks

Enriched input uses input that has been carefully modified with the aim that learners will

notice the target forms in the input Ellis mentions two ways to enriched input that is input flood and input enhancement

Input flood is achieved when input is purposefully enriched with numerous examples of

target forms, but without any means of drawing learners‟ attention to the forms that are being targeted The rationale with input flood is that acquisition will take place because of frequent exposure to targeted forms

Input enhancement is similar to enriched input, but with the important difference that with

input enhancement there will be some means of drawing learner‟s attention to the form being focused on This is achieved by simple mechanisms such as highlighting the targeted forms in texts

Focused communicative tasks

Focused communicative tasks are tasks that have become widely used since the advent of the task-based approach to second language teaching According to Ellis (2001:21) the aim with focused communicative tasks is to provide opportunities for learners to produce a particular target form This is done by designing tasks around a communicative setting that

is typically based on real-world events

The crucial element of focused communicative tasks is that while performing the tasks, learners‟ attention should be focused on meaning and not form Acquisition of target forms is considered incidental and not the intended purpose as is the case with functional language teaching Ellis (2001) states that the distinction between focused communicative tasks and functional language teaching lies in the perspective that with the former learners see language as a tool which can be used to communicate in a near real-world communicative situation With functional language teaching, the perspective falls more heavily on the language and on the particular form or forms that need to be dealt with in order to complete

an activity successfully

2.2.3.3 Incidental focus on form

Two kinds of incidental focus on form have been identified: pre-emptive and reactive (Ellis, 2001: 22)

Pre-emptive focus on form

During pre-emptive focus on form the teacher or the learners decide to turn the attention away from a communicative activity to focus conversation on linguistic form for a short while before resuming the communicative activity This kind of focus on form is referred

to by Ellis et al (2002b) as unfocused tasks Therefore, the shift is not result of an error in production that has occurred or of a problem with meaning that has been encountered With pre-emptive focus on form either teacher or the learners feel need for clarification around some structural point in order to facilitate understanding of the meaning-focused activity that will follow Examples of pre-emptive focus on form would be if the teacher overtly asked the learners if they were experiencing any problems that are form related and

if the teacher verbalized a grammatical rule Ellis a al (2002b: 427) state that pre-emptive focus on form can be conversational or didactic in nature Conversational pre-emptive

focus on form takes place when the teacher or the learners initiate focus on form that has arisen because of a communicative need According to Ellis et al this kind of focus on form is rare, as opposed to didactic focus on form which occurs frequently During didactic pre-emptive focus on form, the teacher or the learner interrupt the otherwise communicative activity to focus on linguistic structure The form that is being focused on then becomes the topic of discussion

Reactive focus on form takes place when the teacher provides negative feedback to actual

or perceived errors made by the learners (Ellis 2001:23) The nature of the feedback can vary from implicit to explicit negative feedback

Implicit negative feedback

According to Ellis (2005) implicit negative feedback takes place when the learners supply

a linguistically incorrect response, the teacher tends to avoid direct, explicit, overt negative evaluation Teachers will display a general preference and rely extensively on recast Moreover, teachers also use other implicit options such as requests of classifications and repetitions

Explicit negative feedback

Explicit negative feedback views errors positively It reflects a sociolinguistic need on the parts of teachers to protect the face of their students Ellis (2001) mentions options of explicit negative feedback: explicit correction (provides the correct form), meta-linguistic feedback (consists of comment, information, or questions related to the well-formedness of the student‟s utterance, elicitation (attempt to directly elicit the correct form from student)

Ellis et al (2002b:423) distinguish between conversational and didactic reactive focus on form

Conversational reactive focus on form happens when a linguistic error made by the student

leads to a communication problem, to which the teacher responds by engaging the student

in negotiation of meaning Conversational reactive focus on form can be achieved by means of requests for confirmation or requests for clarification The teacher can negotiate

meaning by requesting information form the student, who typically repeats the problematic item or phrase with or without reformulating it With requests for clarification, negotiation

of meaning is achieved because the learner has to first figure out why the teacher is not understanding the utterance, and then come up with a way to reformulate the utterance in such a way that the teacher will understand

Didactic reactive focus on form occurs when the teacher choose to react to an error in

linguistic form that a learner has made even though the error has not led to communication problems during conversation Ellis et al (2002b:424) calls this kind of error treatment a

“pedagogic „time-out‟” and state that this kind of focus on form is more often in adult second language classrooms than conversational reactive focus on form

2.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of FFI

Language teaching through FFI has been controversial issues among linguists As for them, there have existed both strong points and weak ones with FFI method to grammar teaching

2.3.1 The Advantages of FFI

There are some main advantages of FFI as follows:

Firstly, according to Ellis and his colleagues, FFI helps draw learners‟ attention to form while they are engaged in communicative activities which is not easy to achieve because learners find it difficult to attend to meaning and form at the same time (Ellis et al., 2001:422) Similarly, as for Dekeyser and Johnson‟s view (cited in Ellis, 2001:8), with given enough opportunities to use language in communicative activities and provided instruction with attention to form (e.g negative feedback) during communicative activities, learners will become able to use their conscious knowledge of grammatical structures automatically, or unconsciously

Secondly, Ellis (1994:659) argues that this approach results in increased accuracy and accelerates progress developmental sequences and its effects are to some extent durable

He further explains that without instruction in the linguistic elements of the second language, learners are not likely to achieve very high levels of linguistic competence

Sharing the opinion with Ellis, Long (1991: 45-46) points out that using FFI in the classroom allows the teacher to instruct students to both accuracy and fluency It emphasizes the accuracy of language forms in communicative classrooms Although FFI is not likely to alter sequences of development, it does appear to speed up the rate of learning, help learners in their learning processes, gain long-term accuracy and raise the ultimate level of attainment It also maintains a balance between the focus on forms and focus on meaning, calling on teachers and learners to attend to form when necessary (Long, 1991.,

& Long and Robinson, 1998)

Thirdly, as for Doughty and Williams (1998:2), some attention to formal aspects embedded

in activities that are primarily meaning focused will improve the limited effectiveness of purely communicative classroom practice They refer to a strong and a weaker claim regarding the need for attention to linguistic form within a communicative approach to second language teaching According to the strong claim, learners need to be provided with FFI in order to develop their ability in communicative competence, and to achieve target-like command of the second language According to the weaker claim, FFI will provide learners with “a more efficient language learning experience” because it is believed that FFI “can speed up natural acquisition processes” (Doughty & Williams, 1998:2)

Some researchers (e.g Ellis, 1999; Long, 2000) found that FFI is most effective when it is focused on raising learners‟ awareness of how a structure is formed, what it means, and how it is used rather than on practicing drills for accuracy From the discussion above it is clear that the current language teaching and learning literature is generally in favor of some form of focus on linguistic form

The results of the majority of these studies also indicate that some models of focus on form are effective for language instruction

For instance, in an exploratory study, Lightbown and Spada (1990) investigated the influence of differences in the amount of FonF activity in four intact classes of French learners of English, in grades 5 and 6 (aged 10- 12) Analyses of the classroom data using the Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching (COLT) observation scheme

revealed that FonF activities “were almost always reactions to learners‟ errors or to student requests for assistance with some aspect of language use” (1990, p.437) and rarely involved explicit grammar teaching Lightbown and Spada found that using suppliance in obligatory context analysis of production data obtained from a picture-description task, learners in the class who received the most focus on form were most accurate in their use

of the progressive –ing and at a higher developmental level in their use of the possessive determiners his and her

Next, in a quasi-experimental study isolating just one of the instructional features subsumed by functional-analytic teaching, the use of visual input enhancement, Leeman, Arteagoitia, Fridman, and Doughty (1995) examined the effects of focus on form on the learning of preterit and imperfect tenses in Spanish during content-based instruction They contrasted performance by a group receiving a purely communicative treatment and a group receiving an integrated focus on form The treatment was delivered in two 50-minute periods of instruction Before the first period, both groups were assigned the same reading and questions on a topic in Spanish history The target forms were highlighted, underlined, and color-coded for the treatment group Subjects were instructed to read and answer questions in preparation for a discussion In addition to input enhancement, the treatment group as also told to pay special attention to how temporal relations were expressed in the material During the first class discussion session, the treatment group, in contrast to the communicative controls, received corrective feedback targeted at the use of preterit and imperfect tenses This varied from recasts, through presentation of models, to the use of gestures and expressions to indicate errors The second class session consisted of a debate, during which the treatment group was again told to be careful when expressing temporal relations and was given corrective feedback The communicative group was not so instructed or corrected This treatment was, therefore, brief and administered outside the classroom (reading texts for homework), as well as inside the classroom (receiving corrective feedback) Comparing pretest and posttest scores on three measures, a cloze completion task, a written essay, and an analysis of production during two in-class debates, Leeman et al found a significant pretest to posttest gain for accuracy and suppliance (amount of use) pf preterit and imperfect forms during the debates

To test the effectiveness of FFI in a communicative classroom, an experiment was carried out by Qian (2006) in the course of “Integrated Skills of English” in Gongshang University

in 2003 Subjects were the 72 English majors, 19 males and 53 females who are freshmen

in 2003 As the classes had already been organized before students came to the university,

we could not choose the samples from different classes and then reorganize new classes Class 0302 (with 23 students) was the experimental class and was to be treated with the integrated method Class 0301 (with 24 students) was one control class to be treated with a dominantly form-focused method Another control class, class 0304 (with 25 students), was to be treated with a highly meaning-based method without explicit instruction on language forms These three classes were chosen out of nine classes because the subjects‟ EFL scores in the university entrance examinations were not very different The course was last for four semesters and the results of the treatments were to be assessed by the nationwide Test for English Majors-Band Four (TEM-4) in 2005 The classroom instruction was tasked-based but with a focus on the language forms at the end of each unit The teaching units are divided by topics For each topic students are first engaged in communicative interaction by doing brainstorming to activate prior knowledge, dialogues, role-play, top-down processing of the text, post-reading discussion for high-order thinking, presentations to share ideas, etc After all these have been done, there are awareness-raising activities to draw students‟ attention to language aspects and grammar exercises are assigned for students to practice Students got corrective feedback from the teacher when they made errors Judging from the means, the proficiency level of class 0302 was higher than both of the control classes The improvement difference between class 0302 and class

0304 was significantly different but the performance difference between class 0302 and class 0301 cannot be viewed as significantly different There was no significant difference between class 0301 and 0304 These results have proved that FFI is helpful for the development of students‟ inter-language system

Ellis et al (2002a) also mentioned Doughty and Varela‟s evidence to show that planned focus on form promotes acquisition even when this is measured in terms of spontaneous oral production In this investigation, they provided reactive focus on form directed at past tense verbs in the context of students producing oral and written science reports The reactive focus on from consisted of corrective recasting, where the teacher first repeated a

learner‟s utterance containing a past tense error, highlighting the error through emphasis, and then, if this did not result in a learner self-correction, the teacher recast the utterance using the correct verb form As a result, the students showed marked improvements in posttest through oral and written science reports

In summary, FFI has some major advantages such as drawing learners‟ attention to form while they are engaged in communicative activities; increasing accuracy and accelerating progress developmental sequences and its effects are to some extent durable; improving the limited effectiveness of purely communicative classroom practice

2.3.2 The disadvantages of FFI

Besides good points, FFI also suffers from some disadvantages

Sheen (2003) shows that the advocacy of FFI as the most effective on teaching strategy is only theoretically motivated, and lacks credibility in terms of the empirical evidence available She argues that FFI actually entails the contributive use of a FonFs Further, FonFs is consistently just as effective or more than other options

In alignment with Sheen‟s view, Poole (2005) highlights the fact that FFI has not been empirically tested in a variety of instructional contexts

In terms of empirical, studies on FFI have taken place in settings that appear to be funded, adequately supplied with teaching and learning material, and generally free of classroom discipline problems, notably the United States, New Zealand, and Japan In fact, not a single empirical study can be found that took place in a setting in which classes were overcrowded with up-to-date materials Even though FFI has been investigated in many settings, it appears to be currently undoable in many circumstances due to curricular constrains In particular, in many schools and language programs, teachers are obligated to teach certain forms in a specific order by using government- mandated materials According to Sheorey and Nayar (2002), “Teachers have little say in designing the curriculum, choosing the materials and textbooks, or developing assessment techniques, of all which are controlled by Boards of Studies composed of senior members of the English faculty” (p.18) If the textbooks and materials provided focus on the explicit learning of L2

well-grammatical forms and marginalize authentic oral and written communication make no allowance for occasional grammar study, teachers will be left without resources with which they can both promote real-life interaction

Another problem with FFI is its practicality, especially in educational settings where the class size is large (Poole, 2003b) According to Long (1991) and Long and Robinson (1998), FFI is suited to small-sized classrooms, where instructors can verbally address their students‟ problematic forms, presumably via classroom discussion, question- answer sessions, and impromptu and planned public speaking events In many settings, however, classes are large and individual attention and student-student interaction is not impossible

In addition to curricular problems, Long (1991) and Long and Robinson (1998) have noted that conception of focus on form instruction obliges teachers to have native- like or near native-like competence fluency More specifically, in oral situations, they would need to be able to spontaneously recognize students‟ form-based errors and provide them with the correct ones However, many English language teachers lack a high level of L2 oral proficiency and do not have opportunities for developing it, particularly in the area of oral grammar Yu‟s report (2001) revealed that Grammar-translation method is the only option for EFL teacher in China because they can basically teach English in Chinese (p.197)

Personally, the researcher does not agree that FFI requires teachers to have native-like competence fluency in order to be able to recognize and correct students‟ errors Also, the use of students‟ L1 does not prevent the use of FFI if we take Ellis‟s (2001) definition of FFI which has been presented earlier in this chapter

Another linguistic problem with FFI is the language spoken by English learners and their teachers As Poole (2003b) has pointed out, in many settings, the students and the teachers often share a common first (or second, or third) language and culture, and thus can easily code-switch in order to overcome communicative difficulties or fill communicative gaps However, if problematic grammatical forms can be addressed using another language and then FFI could be seen by teachers and learners as either unnecessary or impractical Long (1991) and Long and Robinson (1998) do not address how the issue of code-switch should